Cordell Taylor

Professor Howard Lytle

RHET 1312
02/09/16
Metacognitive Reflection
I chose to write about Nikola Tesla because he is the main reason I am here with an interest in
electrical engineering. If I chose a topic that I didn't care about, it would have been much more difficult
and frustrating. My intended audience was my instructor, making an academic/ MLA style effective. This
topic interests me because of its potential. The majority of people everywhere are completely reliant on
electrical engineering, but completely ignorant of the underlying principles that make our devices do what
they do. 400 years ago we , now were landing rockets on the moon. And this is just the beginning. My
chosen argument was intended to be an informative piece for other electrical engineers with an interest in
Teslas work. I do not think academic articles are effective, even with the special consideration of this
particular context. Modern people are equipped with Google. Academic arguments are more difficult to
find, more limited in information, and in limited supply. Mine was published in 1982 (!) and was the only
thing I could find on Teslas wireless technology. Something written this century would have been nice. A
classmate gave me feedback that was ultimately ignored. To be honest, my biggest challenge developing
this assignment was to reinterpret an informative article as being persuasive. Im sure the author would
agree with my analysis, but he was not intentionally trying to(argue) be convincing. I did more of a
rhetorical over-analysis, but it worked.